


These Guys Get Levels?

by AdAstridPerAspera



Category: The Wandering Inn - pirateaba
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26297080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdAstridPerAspera/pseuds/AdAstridPerAspera
Summary: Sometimes, stories don't end where you would expect. For Alice, it was supposed to be over. She had been cleared of the charges of regicide. The princess was saved, long-since become queen and the Royal Academy of Magi had been reformed after the brutal civil war she had unintentionally sparked. With her apprentice and her friends, she had saved a species and calmed the vicious echoes of dying gods, earned her blessings and rewards from the new pantheon.With the adventures over and her old life gone, it was time for her ever-after. Time to cast aside the veil of being the long-dead wizard whose legacy she had clung to and carve out her own space in the annals of history. There was a whole new world to explore. Worlds, even, as she found connections like what had brought her there years before.Then, worlds away, a call went out for [Heroes]. Even aimed elsewhere, a spell that pulled hundreds across dimensions was bound to leave far-ranging cracks. Cracks more than big enough for a few exploring mages to fall through.She's a bit miffed at being lost. A bit happy to get to explore. A bit angry at how this world treats Goblins. Mostly, she feels cheated that *this* world gets a shortcut by having levels.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20





	1. Through the Cracks

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's my crack at a Wandering Inn fanfic. Not much to say other than that. 
> 
> No set update schedule, but I'll be putting stuff up whenever I get it done. Plan's for ~3k word chapters after the intro. It's not a fully planned out story, but I've got a few plotlines I want to go through. Some might intercept with Pirate's, some might not. Main goal is to just have fun writing this story about some of my old characters ending up in the lovely world Pirate's built after their own (sadly, unwritten) adventures come to an end. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it!

**Through the Cracks**

The cave was dark, as such places tended to be. It was also rather dead, which was slightly more uncommon. None of the baser creatures of the world had chosen to make a den within it, not even in the upper reaches. No water flowed inside of it and thus none of the strange life that often abounded within the bowels of the world had found it to be suitable. The stranger beasts that had dug it out in older times had long-since moved on as the stones and power they hungered for had been depleted. Now, little was left in its worming passages save for bare stone.

Bare stone and Goblins.

The Shattered Stones tribe was alone. But that was just how Goblins were, here. They were inured to it; whenever they found others, it brought nothing but pain. Humans killed Goblins. Monsters killed Goblins. Nature killed Goblins. Even Goblins killed Goblins when tribes fought over food or power or position.

They were also a small tribe, now, albeit an old one. Their [Shaman] was dead. So were the three hobs they’d had a scant few days before, including their old [Chieftain]. Their leader had gotten the class several days into the exodus but was too new to it to make much use of the ancestral memories it brought. Still, they had managed to avoid the humans that had come with their inevitable and fiery death and made it to the cave that they’d used to hide even before Velan the Kind had come to Izril and been slain. There wasn’t much food nearby, but it was enough for a tribe as small as they’d become to subsist on for as long as it took for the humans and their adventurers to leave.

It wasn’t to say that they’d come off particularly bad from the exchange, as Goblin things went. Twenty of them had made it, plus a handful of children nobody bothered to count. Three of them had levelled up into [Warriors] and they’d managed to snag the bags on the ones the hobs had killed. Potions, food, clothes…even a few things that might have been enchanted. The dagger was sharper than it should’ve been, at least according to the Goblin that had lost their thumb on it. Some in the tribe just thought he’d been a dumbass. Just in case, though, they never said that to his face.

They’d settled in by now, reaching a routine that let them relax. The chief was dreaming in one of the side passages, reaching back to see where they could go from here. The aspirant to be [Shaman] was messing with bones and plants he’d seen the last shaman using, without much success. A handful of Goblins, not lucky or strong enough to have things from the looted packs, were scavenging. One of the [Warriors] was watching the mouth of the cave, making sure that nothing came in at the kids that were too young to run away. The rest were busy with what Goblins did when they were stressed or happy or cold or bored: made more Goblins.

It was two of those, a bit more concerned with privacy than most, that bore witness to three people stepping out of a wall.

~-~-~

“Hey Iltari, you were right.”

The woman that spoke was short. If she’d had a beard or been a little wider, she could’ve been mistaken for a dwarf. Her dress reached her knees, layers of opalescent fabric shimmering in the cool light streaming from one of her companions’ skin. A cloak, sable cloth trimmed with crimson, was draped across her shoulders, pale hair splayed across its lowered hood. Its hem never seemed to move from its spot inches above the ground, not even as the woman moved.

The one that replied rolled her shoulders, pulling her own cloak tighter around her as she felt the cool air of the cave. Her hood was up, face hidden in the shadows that clung to her in ways that darkness was often reluctant to do. “Well obviously. But uh, what do you mean?”

The third figure sighed. Her skin was the only light they had, an orange glow that swirled with myriad shades of color shining out from beneath her skin. Her clothes ran the gamut from cerulean to indigo, draped across the shifting pattern of her skin in ways that focused the light on crystals woven into the fabric and scattered it around. She was used to her companions’ antics and more concerned with how, to her, the air had thinned considerably. Or what the two sets of red eyes reflecting from behind a nearby rock were. Still, she knew better than to interrupt and get dragged into it.

“We shouldn’t have taken the left at that screaming temple.”

“This isn’t the right cave, is it?” The taller one, Iltari, drew her cloak in even tighter and scuffed the floor with one foot. Small runes carved into her shoes flashed once as the impact sent shards of rock flying towards where the two Goblins were still hiding.

“Nope. We’re still lost.”

“Back in, I guess?”

“Yup. Maybe try to find that flying island again? It’s usually pretty close to our door.”

That was when the girl made of living fire spoke up, “Might be a bit of a problem there, Alice. There’s no door.”

“What? There’s always a door!” The shorter girl turned and saw nothing but the rocky wall of the passage. She proceeded to poke it, mumble words that shook the air and sent ripples running across the rock, and then try to walk through it and bounced off.

Then she kicked it. Her feet didn’t send rock flying, just left her hopping around on one foot and cursing.

One companion smirked, the other giggled. “Well, _Master_ , what are we supposed to do now that you got that out of your system?”

“Hey! Don’t get snippy with me when you’re still technically my apprentice! I can turn off those heating runes on your cloak, y’know!” She sighed and turned to the glowing girl, still cradling her foot. “You doing okay Namiree? Any ideas on how to get out of this?”

“I’ll be fine. I can still feel the Heart, it’s just…muffled. There’s not as much ambient mana here, but with you two I’ll just have to be a bit more careful on how I spend mine.” She shifted for a second, the reddish strands of flame that made up her hair rising as they flared into a much brighter blue light. A light that burnt away the shadows that the two, mostly naked, Goblins had been hiding in as they slowly backed away from the obviously magical trio.

“Suggestion wise? We should probably talk to these two, first.”


	2. Out of the Dark

**Out of the Dark**

The smaller of the two goblins ran off before they could do anything, but the other just stood up. She didn’t bother to cover herself when she pointed at Alice. To the other two, her words were guttural gibberish in a way that would’ve hurt to speak. To the girl she addressed, they were just words. Disconnected from the movement of her mouth, maybe, but perfectly understandable.

_“You. Speak Goblin. How?”_

Alice couldn’t keep her eyes on the half-naked goblin and ended up just looking at the wall before answering. “Kind of?”

She gestured to a loop of etched silver on her ear and a shimmering pendant of the same material around her neck. “Translation enchantments, aural and verbal.”

The Goblin spat to the side. _“Bah-magic. Why here?”_

“We uh, got lost. We’re probably stuck, for now, since apparently the White decided not to have a door on this side.”

_“No. Why **here**.”_

The other two girls didn’t even bother trying to follow the conversation. They’d worked together long enough to trust Alice to hash things out and warn them if things went bad. The elemental was poking around at the wall they’d come out of, her fingers leaving divots of glowing rock as she ran them around the space that should’ve had a doorway or portal of some kind.

Alice perked up after a few seconds of thinking. “Oh! Like, what are we going to do here? Sorry, grammar doesn’t always come across well. Um, like I said, we got lost. We were exploring a bit, took a few wrong turns, so we’re probably just going to look around and see what’s here. Sorry for uh, interrupting you.”

_“Too many words. Not hunting? Not killing? Not many magic death?”_

“Good gods, no!” The girl’s hands curled into fists, her nails leaving crescent-shaped dimples in her palms. “We’ve killed people, sure. But we don’t do it because we like to. Why the hell would you ask that?”

The Goblin shrugged. _“You look Human. Humans don’t talk to Goblins, just kill. Not people.”_

The girl’s skin paled even more, somehow. “I…look, we’re not going to do that, ok? We’re not evil.”

_“Useless word.”_

There was silence for a few minutes, the Goblin and the pale girl just staring at each other. Scrabbling echoed down from further up the tunnel, the sound of feet and nails scraping against stone, but neither moved. The covered Human leaned up against one wall while the glowing woman kept fiddling with the other.

Eventually, Alice sat down. Her cloak pooled beneath her so she never quite touched the stone. The Goblin smirked at being able to look down on a grown Human for once, even if it was a short one.

“I’m awful at this diplomatic stuff. I faked my way through it before the war, and once that started Iri was always there to handle everything that wasn’t magic. Sorry in advance that I’m screwing this up.”

She took a deep breath.

“I am Alice Remilla, blessed of Hira, Magister of the White, and defender of the Solar Throne. My apprentice, Iltari Kelarth, has been at my side for six years and shares many titles. With us is our friend and familiar, Namiree, Daughter of the Flame and former Bearer of the Heart. We came here by mistake, but we come in peace. We swear on our names and our practice that we mean you no harm, so long as none is done to us. We will leave now, if you ask, but we would like you to answer some questions. We’re willing to pay.”

The Goblin shrugged again and picked at her teeth. _“Might answer. Got any food?”_

Alice dug around in her pockets, both the ones hidden by the shimmering folds of her dress and the ones that lined the inside of her cloak, coming up with a few strips of dried meat and some nuts in one hand. The other held a wrapped piece of bread and some cheese. “Will these work?”

The Goblin sniffed audibly and pointed at the hand with the meat, which Alice tossed forward. The green-skinned woman crouched over them. Seconds later, a few smaller pieces of meat, raggedly torn off, flew back alongside a couple of nuts.

_“Eat.”_

“You think I’m trying to poison you?” The mage picked up the meat and started chewing even as she continued, “I wouldn’t do that, see?”

The hooded woman started laughing and the elemental smirked. “Should be glad we didn’t let you cook, then.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I get salt cravings!”

The banter flew right over the Goblin’s head, but she didn’t mind. Once she saw the Human swallow the food she was satisfied it wasn’t a trap. So she’d started stuffing her face. Meat first, then the nuts. All of it was significantly saltier than anything she’d had before. It was barely a fistful of food, but for a Goblin in a tribe like hers that was a feast. When she finished, she lolled back and burped. If the trio had known anything about Goblins, they’d have realized she was still tensed up and ready to leap at or away from them.

“So, uh, what’s your name?”

 _“Thumbthief.”_ She licked the crumbs from her hands and added, _“Stupid question.”_

The girl frowned for a second at the name before moving on. “Where are we?”

_“Here.”_

“Where is ‘here’?”

 _“Cave. Not-mountain. Big river that way. Humans too.”_ The goblin pointed over her shoulder.

“What do the Humans call this place?”

_“Don’t care.”_

Alice sighed. “If you’re not going to be helpful, just tell us which way we go to get out.”

 _“That way.”_ Over the shoulder again. _“More Goblins. Do magic, they run. Maybe.”_

Alice nodded and got to her feet, the cloak unfurling behind her to hover that smallest bit above the ground. She gestured for her companions to follow her as they walked past the ominously named Thumbthief. The cloaked women missed that the little Goblin was holding a rock behind her back. The elemental didn’t. A wordless glare accompanied by the soft whumph of a ball of viridian fire appearing in one hand and rising to orbit her head made sure the green humanoid didn’t try anything.

“So, oh wise one, what did the half-naked green lady tell you?”

“Well, there’s a river and other Humans somewhere this direction. We’re not in a mountain. And her name’s Thumbthief.”

“So you got conned out of your food is what you’re saying.”

“Pretty much. And she’s a Goblin, I’m pretty sure. Which, uh, makes me wish we’d brought some of our wargear.” The girl sighed, darker tones slipping into the opalescent strands of lace that edged her dress as she brooded. “They’re something from my world’s stories, too. Like the Elves were. Usually they’re mistreated people, but sometimes they’re genuinely evil. It sounds like Humans try to kill them here. Same shit, different world.”

The hooded girl reached out from under her cloak for the first time since they’d walked through the wall. An arm the color of wet ash, shot through with branching gold and silver lines, settled onto her limping friend’s shoulders. “Your foot still hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. Forgot I wore the haste ones today until after I kicked that wall.”

“Thought so. You always get all mopey when you’re in pain.” Iltari snorted and ducked around the half-hearted shove that brought her way. “Let’s get out of here and explore. This place should be more interesting than the White or any of those empty places. I mean, you just heard it has Humans! We might even be able to learn something before we go back, maybe even get a permanent door set up here.”

“ _If_ we get back.”

The ashen-skinned girl thumped her friend on the back of the head as they started to walk through an inhabited part of the cave, more Goblins with shining red eyes watching as they moved past. Most took one look at the ball of fire and decided that going deeper into the remaining shadows was a better idea than mobbing the trio. The two Humans wrinkled their noses at the less-than-pleasant smell in the air before a ripple of magic conjured a breeze flowing outward around them, carrying with it the scent of ozone. As the current touched Namiree, her skin flared brighter.

“ _When_ we get back, Alice. This is just another adventure; you know we’ve been through worse.”

She wasn’t so sure, but that didn’t keep it from making her feel at least a little better about all this. Not about her foot, though. She was still limping and using the **haste** runes on her shoes to keep up with her companions’ pace as they made it out of the cave and kept walking.

Only a single pair of red eyes watched as they went down the scree slope and into the damp forest. The Goblin they were attached to was just starting to get up to follow them, clutching at a handful of old bones, when another smacked him on the back of the head.

_“Magic death. Idiot.”_

He sat back down, forced to do nothing but dream…for now.

~-~-~

“Hey, Allie, where are we actually going?”

Iltari had her hood down now that they were in the open. Her hair sat in the same braid, albeit slightly frayed, it had been in when they’d left their tower to explore the White. Even without the hood the sunlight never quite seemed to touch her, fading away so she walked in her own patch of perpetual twilight. She couldn’t feel the heat from it, hadn’t been able to for years, but she wasn’t going to let a curse stop her from enjoying the sunset. Now that they were alone she’d let her cloak flutter free, too, and it showed glimpses of her ashen skin and the thin clothing she wore where her body could handle it. In places where the lines on her skin bunched up into knots around gnarled scars the cloth had been cut away to reveal etched, faintly glowing, metal set into her flesh.

“Looking for that river the Goblin mentioned. Or the people. Either one’s fine.” Alice turned around and started walking backwards to talk, her dress twirling out in a rainbow haze that left afterimages in both of her friend’s eyes. Her dress rippled more than the wind they all felt would suggest. Her eyes flicked to the metal pieces and then back to Iltari’s face once she saw everything was intact. They had replacements with them but making more would be difficult without a proper workshop and ley line. She hadn’t felt even a hint of circulating mana since they’d started walking so that seemed unlikely.

“And what’s the plan after that?”

“Ask around? See where we are, what the world’s like. Buy some time at a forge and a bit of silver, spend a couple hours making some gear for us. Translation pieces, maybe a couple of basic wands.”

“You remember how to make those without the book?”

“I’ve made hundreds for Iri’s diplomatic missions. No need for a reference there. Might…” her words cut off with a squeak as her foot caught a tree root and sent her onto her back. “Ugh, fuck. Anyway, I’ll probably need to make a circle to work it, sure, but I can crank out a set for each of you in an hour or two. Might take longer if I have to adjust the formula because of poor metal, maybe, but these are some of the first things I studied.”

Iltari walked past her nominal teacher as Namiree helped her up. “I meant the wands. You always have references around when you’re working on them.”

“Oh! That’s for complicated stuff. Swappable spell sets, multi-channel work, affinity focusing…y’know, the complicated parts of runework and enchanting you never got into. These’ll be simple shit, just a couple of rods set up for fire, lightning, and ice. Quick-casters, not spell-aids. Big difference.”

“If you say so.”

The conversation trailed off after that. Namiree left a trail of steaming moss and dirt behind her as they went through the loosely packed trees, occasionally grumbling about all the water that sometimes dripped from the leaves onto her. By this point all three were bored of the trees. They’d passed a couple of faintly magical plants, but other than that the entire place was mundane and familiar like every other forest.

“So…how long are we planning to walk?”

“Until we hit the river?”

“You said that already. I mean how far away _is_ this river?”

“Uh…”

“Thought so.” Iltari pulled her cloak tight again and flipped up the hood. “I’m going to fly up and get a look around. If I can’t see it from here, we should camp for the night. If I can, Namiree and I are flying. You can run in those **hasted** shoes you love so much.”

“I can fly too!”

“In that dress? You’ll be flashing half the countryside.”

“You say that every time! It’s not like we’ll be low enough for anyone to actually see anything this time.” The girl from Earth stuck her tongue out. “You’re just jealous of my fashion sense.”

“The only person I know who actually thought you had fashion was Iridian. Obviously, someone from the City of Lights would think that having that many sparkles is cute. Her family thought the Solar Throne was actually tasteful.”

She didn’t wait for an answer before shooting into the air. Her flight was faster than what Namiree or Alice could do, even if it was more turbulent. A visible current of wind rushed in underneath her and trailed behind where she went, tendrils of mana laced through the air that roiled around her like a second skin. Once she was in the air she looked like a particularly small thundercloud.

“You think my style’s pretty, right Namiree?”

The elemental refused to look at what she rightly assumed was Alice’s begging face. “I’m not getting involved in this argument again. I’m just going to say that my crystals, at least, have a purpose.”

The two of them sat down to wait, eyes on the moving cloud that Iltari had become. Alice was muttering under her breath about everyone she knew being ungrateful while she shuffled around to lean against a tree. She made a point not to bother with closing her legs or moving her cloak over them. Namiree just rolled her eyes before starting to meditate, her hair dropping back into dull red curls as her skin faded to a nearly black sheen of light. Motes of environmental mana, what little there was, flowed into her as a circle of ground around her began to dry out.

A few minutes later the cloud came down and Iltari stepped out. “Nothing in sight, so we’re at least a day away from it. Time to make camp.”

Alice groaned, but started shaping the ground with a mix of small gestures, subvocalized words, and focused will. The magic she had studied for years, even if it wasn’t her specialty, drew the ground up into a wall, six feet high and sheer. A corresponding ditch appeared outside it in a circle around the camp. The only outcrop from the wall was a small, doorless overhang centered around a deeper hole.

Iltari raised three smaller structures in the center of the ring, squat buildings with a single entrance and a few ventilation holes. Namiree’s efforts were focused on a firepit in the center. When it was finished she sat in the center and her lower half dissolved into a crackling, fuel-less fire from which her torso sprouted.

“When was the last time we made one of these?”

Iltari counted on her fingers. “Three, maybe four years ago? The trip back from the Elvenhome I think.”

“I’m just glad we’re not in that damn rainforest anymore. Having to spread myself so thin just to keep the mosquitos away wasn’t fun.” 

“Second that. Keeping the place drained was torture. Still better than having to do the set up for an entire army every night. Those early days were the worst.”

The sun set on the three reminiscing about past adventures and exploits. They relaxed and ate more of the trail rations they always took on trips into the White before preparing a set of wards around the whole encampment. Shimmering trails of mana linked all three of them to a faint diagram carved into the outer wall, pulling power from each to sustain a multi-layered set of alarms, traps, and reactive barriers. They decided on a watch schedule and then settled in for their first night in a new world.

As they eventually fell asleep, wrapped in their own cloaks, each felt a nearly forgotten charm warm slightly as it countered what it thought of as a mental intrusion. For two of them, it meant that they missed messages that nearly everyone in this world craved. For the other, words that had been forgotten for longer than any mortal alive could fathom hammered at the charm which simply refused to give ground. Twice in the past year they had been called.

This time, though, they found no answer and had no choice but to fade away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit longer this time! Hope you all enjoyed it!


	3. Meet the Neighbors

**Meet the Neighbors**

Safiel wished he’d never picked up the contract at this point. He hadn’t been able to resist the easy gold for leading a dozen Silver-ranks out to the local nuisance of a Goblin tribe. Then a third of them got killed in the first strike. He got the rest back in town quick enough to save them, but that left the job half done. So now here he was, stuck leading the barely half-strength team through a damp forest after the survivors and having to push his [Skills] to the limit just to follow the cold trail.

Even worse, one of the idiotic adventurers had gotten his foot stuck in an old burrow and shattered his ankle. It was bad enough that they couldn’t just splint it up and use a potion, but they didn’t have the option of taking him back if they wanted to kill the rest of the Goblins and get paid. The team wouldn’t be able to cover a [Healer] that could actually fix it without full pay anyway. So, they’d been stuck carrying him even as the trail went colder.

Then there’d been two straight days of storms washing away most of what was left and making the rest of them positively miserable.

Suffice it to say, he wasn’t happy.

The sun had just come up after another miserable night in a soaked camp. They had to decide today if they were going to give up and take the pay for what they’d already done or push on and try to kill the rest of the tribe. Honestly? He was fine with half pay at this point. Leading people that were the furthest possible thing from woodsmen around was getting to be too much for the exasperated [Tracker].

He was about to say as much when someone pointed at the sky and shouted. Another pointed at the woods in the same direction. People were rushing to grab their gear even as Safiel tried to see what had gotten everyone riled up. He had his bow at hand, strung and ready with an arrow nocked. When he raised it at the edge of the clearing his [Dangersense] screamed at him hard enough that he let it fall.

The first intruder landed in the middle of a storm cloud that came down from the perfectly clear sky, a cloak wrapped around them that the morning light couldn’t seem to bring out of darkness.

Next to that one was a woman with skin and hair of fire, wearing a scandalously thin dress covered in crystals. She _shone_ , brighter than the dim light that filtered through the trees, but her glow never quite reached her companion. All they saw within the hood were flashes of gold and silver. 

Moments later, a third showed up. She was carried in on steps longer than she was tall, trails of light and color dancing in her wake as she stumbled to a stop. With her height she almost had to be a dwarf.

All three of them radiated that subtle feeling of power that only came from layered and powerful magic, each one standing with the quiet assurance that they weren’t in danger from anything here. It was the short one in the dress, which any of the Silver-ranks would have bet gold was an artifact, that stepped forward and spoke with a voice so much airier than they expected.

“Hi! Sorry to barge in, but we saw the smoke here and we’re kinda lost. Think you could tell us where the closest town is?”

It was one of the adventurers that answered, “Uh…that way? About three days walk, on the bend in the river.”

“Thanks! Anything we can do to help you guys? Sounds like you’re pretty far out here in the middle of nowhere.” The man with the broken ankle groaned, drawing her eyes and a frown more at home on a [Lady] than a random woman that ran out of the woods. “Ouch, that looks bad. I’m not much of a healer, but I can probably help.”

A grunted ‘please’ later and she was crouched down next to him. Everyone had seen her move. Several times, in fact, if you counted afterimages from the blur her steps had left behind. They were all gawping at how her cloak hovered above the ground even as it splayed out behind her. Her movements and speech slowed down to something closer to normal as she looked at the swollen ankle.

“Yeah, this is shredded. I can get you walking, with help, but it’ll still take a long time to heal even if you don’t break it again. Hang on, this is gonna itch.” Before anyone could interrupt her or talk to the other two, she had her hands over the leg.

Someone gasped as almost a dozen golden threads raced from her fingers and dove into the man’s flesh. He started moaning as she worked, brow furrowed and eyes half-closed, but even as they watched the swelling started to go down. Nobody wanted to interrupt the obviously high-levelled [Mage] when she was working on their friend, not even if he was in a lot of pain. He, however, tried to push her away.

His hands bounced off the air over a foot from her torso.

“Stop that! I said it would itch.” The strands of light faded away into a diffuse golden glow that soaked into the leg, leaving the skin a color that was less obviously unnatural and straightening the foot with an audible snap. “There. Bones are back in place and fused for now. Don’t take a potion for a few hours, but you should be fine to do one after that. I don’t have any poultices with me that would help it heal faster, but it should be able to take your weight as long as you don’t run or jump.”

Her hands disappeared into her pockets as she stood up with another smile. “There! Anything else you need?”

The [Tracker] was still too stunned to say much. Less than five minutes had gone by and he still couldn’t stop glancing at the woman who seemed to be made of fire. Her eyes met his, once, and then flicked away to her companion.

“We were hunting some Goblins, maybe you could…” The caption of the Silver-rank team was cut off before he could finish.

“Nope, nosiree. Can’t help with that.” She sped up again, blurring as she went back to her companions. “Thanks for the directions. Bye!”

She darted off in a cloud of dust, weaving through the trees. Both of her companions took to the air, flying off in the same direction. One wreathed in dark air and shadow, the other shining like a star above the rainbow that the dwarf-girl had trailed despite the fluttering cloak she wore.

It took a few minutes for anyone to get their thoughts together enough to talk. They mechanically ate breakfast and then the words started flowing.

“Those were Gold-ranks, right?”

“Maybe? Can’t have been Named, we’d have heard of them, right?”

“Even if they were just Gold we should’ve heard of someone like that if they were around here.”

“Maybe they’re new? They did say they were lost.”

“How would someone get lost enough to end up here? We’re days off the main road!”

“Are all Gold-ranks that weird? I mean, did you see that fire lady?”

“Who cares, was that _healing?_ Dead gods, imagine her level!”

Safiel’s hands were shaking when he looked down, not chiming into the discussion. He needed some time to think about what he’d seen. The way her hair had moved, the swirls on her skin…that woman hadn’t been Human. And he had no clue what she could be.

~-~-~

It took almost six hours, with a couple of breaks, for the city to come into sight. If Alice had kept in better shape she might’ve been able to keep up the **haste** from her shoes for longer, but as it was she’d needed to go slower than the max just to keep from tearing something or hitting a tree face-first more than once every twenty minutes.

It was either a large town or a small city, depending who you asked, rimmed by a wall that, to their standards, was fairly short. There weren’t any buildings outside the walls and only a few inside rose above the barrier themselves. Trails of smoke rose from myriad chimneys, delicate lines that traced their way across the slow-moving water of the oxbow behind the city. A road ran along the river itself, hard-packed dirt that branched off into a simple bridge and the city’s sole gatehouse.

The gates were open and had a pair of listless guards in what had to be the town’s colors stopping and then waving through the thin stream of travelers. They wore brown and blue in a tabard layered over what looked like light chain armor. No clear enchantments showed up even as the trio got close enough to check. The way they jerked up at seeing the group made it obvious that this was something so far over their pay grade that they didn’t even know who to foist it off onto.

The three had, respectively, landed and slowed down to a more reasonable pace before taking their place in the short line that continuously tried to wave them ahead.

“No, no, it’s ok! We don’t want to jump the line.” Alice leaned against Iltari and yawned as the handful of people ahead of them got ushered through without even being questioned. Without exception they clustered in the streets on the other side, joining a slowly growing crowd.

“Your turn, Ma’am. My Lady. Uh…” the guard was stumbling over his words trying to figure out the right way to address the radiant woman that scared him even though he towered over her. His companion’s gaze jumped repeatedly between the shadowy one and the one that he would swear was made of actual fire. Both deliberately kept their hands very, very far from their weapons; these weren’t people they could afford to threaten.

Alice sighed; she’d always hated obsequiousness like this. Maybe dressing like one of the Fae wasn’t the best idea after all…

“I’m Alice. You’re the city guard, right? Just do your jobs.”

They’d flinched at her words, but eventually one asked, “Are you adventurers?”

Alice shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. Does that change anything?”

“We’re uh, supposed to warn you not to make trouble. Remind you that any contraband is subject to seizure and a fine. No mind affecting, destructive, or mass-target spells inside the walls.” The almost-shaking man looked at Namiree. “Uh, no summons either.”

“Oh, Namiree? She’s not a summon, don’t worry. Anything else?”

It was the other guard, a woman with black hair, that stepped in. Her voice was a bit steadier than her compatriots. “Anyone Silver-rank and over is expected to contribute to the city’s defense in any extraordinary situations. We’ll need to have your group on file as long as you’re here.”

“We probably fit into that, yeah. You just need our names?”

“Individual or team works, yes.” She had a small clipboard, the gate’s copy of the watch’s list, ready to take them down.

“I’m Alice. Remilla, if you need the last name too. With me are Iltari Kelarth and Namiree.”

There were a few extra notes added.

_Alice Remilla – Dwarf?_

_Iltari Kelarth – Cloaked, visible aura [Skill]._

_Namiree ? – Human? Walking fire hazard_

_Gold-ranks? Nobles? Mages?_

“Thank you for cooperating.” Part of the crowd inside had wandered away when they hadn’t made a scene. There were still a few gawking at the trio, though, even as the guard’s partner tried to shoo them out of the way to let a trio of other guards through. “Is there anything we can do to make your stay easier? Directions to the Adventurer’s or Mage’s Guild? Maybe the Vekhalin estate?”

Alice shook her head again. “No thank you. I wouldn’t mind directions to a forge or smithy I could rent some time at, though. Any suggestions?”

The guards, now five, muttered a few sentences to each other before two different ones moved out to watch the gates. Another started dispersing the crowd, one ran off with the notes, and the woman that had gotten their names said, “I can take you to the crafts’ district, if you’d follow me?”

The trio had a fair distance between them and anyone else on the street, even with the handful of bored residents that followed them. They kept one eye on the guide who kept glancing back at them.

“Not too different from home, is it? Houses might be a bit nicer than the village, but it’s no City of Lights.”

Iltari sighed and jabbed an elbow into her teacher’s side. “You really haven’t noticed yet, have you?”

“What? What’s there to notice?”

“What our friend means, Alice, is that these people are speaking your language.” She raised an arm to the crowd. “The group earlier, the ones here, it is all your native tongue. English? We might not know it but it’s still recognizable.”

She took off her earring and listened or a second, brows crinkling, before putting it back in.

“You’re right. That’s…well, that’s weird. The Goblin definitely wasn’t speaking it. I’m still going to make you guys some translators though.”

They were silent the rest of the way.

The town apparently had three smiths on the same street, each with a different specialty. The first one they went to was empty, but apparently focused on agricultural tools. The second’s apprentice said they were too busy without even looking up from the shield he was working on. The third, whose shop was adorned with weapons, came out to talk herself.

She was a muscled Human without much on, sweat dripping down her arms and streaked across her clothes while she loosely held onto her hammer. She looked a bit confused, maybe even apprehensive. Alice would admit wasn’t the best at reading emotions, so she wasn’t sure.

“You want to rent my forge out? Not commission something, but rent out the actual building?”

“Well, not the building. Just the work area. I need heat, tools, and a workspace to make some gear we forgot to bring. I’d also need some silver to work with, if you had any. I know it’s a bit inconvenient but I’m sure I can compensate you for it.”

“So you’re a [Smith]? And you intend to work in that?” She gestured with the hammer, making the guard tense. “I’m not saying no, it’s just…”

Alice looked down and laughed. Three presses on a rune at her collar and the dress shifted. Lace sunk back into the fabric that rippled like it was alive. When the ripples calmed she was left in a sleeveless white smock that only had color when looked at from the corner of the eye. “It’s done up to protect against heat and stains, plus it has self-repair enchantments, so I don’t really worry about it much.”

“I dabble, though. My work’s centered on runes and enchanting. Flawed objects don’t hold power any better than a cracked vase, though, so I made a point to learn how to work a forge to get proper substrates.” She reached into one of her cloak’s pockets then held out her hand. “Would this be enough to rent your forge and your tools until sunset?”

The smith dropped her hammer.

The dwarven-looking girl asking to use her forge was holding out three gemstones. Two red stones the size of a thumb and one egg-sized blue one. Any of the three was worth what she made in a month, maybe even more depending on who she sold them to and what exactly they were. Each was almost perfect, without any clouds or defects she could see at a glance.

“Well, whaddya say?”

“That’s…that’s too much, ma’am.”

“Nonsense! I’m forcing you out of your workplace for hours, using your tools, probably messing up your routine or any commissions…just take it, if we’ve got a deal.” She paused before adding, “Not that you’d have to leave. You can watch if you want.”

The [Smith] hesitated for a moment, eyes lingering on the gems, before nodding. She reached out and shook Alice’s hand before carefully taking the precious stones and tucking them into her apron’s pocket.

As the trio and their host vanished into the courtyard that held the forge itself, their guide reluctantly took up a position outside. By now the [Watch Captain] would have gotten the report and sent someone to the Vekhalin manor and the guilds to let them know about the new arrivals.

Her job had just gotten a lot harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Split this one into two, so that the entry and the repercussions would each be contained in their own chapters.


	4. Dreams, Forged in Flame

**Dreams, Forged in Flame**

Alice spent almost half an hour setting up the runic circle. Chalk dust wasn’t the best material, but it would do well enough for a temporary diagram. The carefully lain powder drew out a smooth curving double-line, the space between holding three rows of the namesake symbols and myriad additions that tended to vary between magical lineages. The ancient master whose notes and possessions had taught the girl had been a purist, relying solely on the symbols themselves and the complex web of associations inherent in their construction and order to bring about his static works.

Even compared to other magic, the results had been frustratingly arcane. The same diagram, if drawn from one direction rather than the other, could have entirely different effects. Even with the vast majority of his work ready at hand it had taken the girl over a year to grasp how the workings around his tower had been created and tied into the ley line at the heart of the mountain. They were monolithic and unchanging in form, troublesome to create under a time limit, absurdly powerful in their narrow function, and absolutely impossible to truly modify without causing a total failure.

His specific art had been largely lost by the time she claimed his mantle, its return being one of the points that reinforced her legitimacy when she first argued before the Royal Academy of Magi for her right to be included. Her own style, though, had diverged into a more hybrid method. For quick work like this, she eschewed the more complex symbols for the equivalent of monosyllabic commands, linked by mana-infused material to form larger chains and arrays, with relatively simple mana constructs shaping and funneling the effects.

The majority of the outer and inner layers were her barrier formations, minus the kinetic components, modified for forge work. They ensured that air would flow in and out even though the heat and mana it would contain could only travel deeper into the circle. Sandwiched between those layers were the intake arrays, which were essentially mana siphons. Linked with largely invisible threads of power to the rest of the diagram, they would pull in ambient mana to power the entire diagram and pump as much as they could into the interior. While she could’ve provided the mana from herself, and would serve as one of the primary sources anyway, the automation would make it easier to focus on the smaller details of the work. For the translation talismans it would simplify the production itself, too, since a small siphon would be enough to fully power the initial needs and keep them charged, so long as the end result was kept close to a living body.

The main point of the circle was simply convenience. She _could_ do all of the work without it, but the process would be significantly more drawn out and wasteful. Setting up an artificially mana-rich environment would give more oomph to her work and serve as a much better replacement for several specialized tools she hadn’t brought than using traditional spellwork as a substitute. The heat containment and amplification portions would save her the effort of manually saturating the materials, along with rendering them soft enough to essentially work by hand. It wasn’t a system that would work for most people. Most, in fact, would broil themselves trying her version.

Most people, though, didn’t have a fire elemental as a familiar and the near-immunity to heat that Alice had developed from their bond.

While she did the actual work, her friends had made themselves comfortable. Namiree was napping in the only sunny spot available. Iltari was lounging against the wall in the darkest corner, her hood up even as she nibbled at an apple. She only had one arm visible, the less scarred one that had been wrapped in cloth so that none of her ashen skin was apparent. Below her a smaller, unobtrusive diagram of nearly liquid darkness sketched out a blocker against scrying and eavesdropping. Eyes would roll off of it at a casual glance, but its main goal was to make the entire place a blur for people outside its radius of effect. A sustained ward spell, rather than runework. She’d put it up as soon as the smith, Miriam, had gotten back with the small ingot of silver and a few steel billets. She’d drop it once the crafting was done, but caution was important in any strange place.

Way back, before Alice had given up her old life and world, they’d had a run-in with the authorities there. None of the trio wanted to fight a circle of government mages again, especially one that had been spying on them for weeks, so the ward was something they set up every time they stopped. Usually they had a talisman for it, but they never took those into the White. Something like that would take over a week for Alice to make, so the ward was good enough for them.

Alice made minute a few final adjustments to the diagram, triple-checking that the lines were all roughly correct. Sometimes she shifted things with her fingers, other times she used small small puffs of mana to get it exact. Runes this simple didn’t really need that much care in their creation, so her last check was of the mana constructs that surrounded them. When everything looked correct, she stood up and started to brush the powder off her hands.

“Can’t say I’ve seen a setup like that before.” Miriam eyed the diagram. “The only [Runesmith] I’ve met just had a regular forge.”

“This is mostly for convenience, honestly. Some heat and mana pumps, a couple utility effects. I’ve got a permanent setup back home that I actually need for some work, but this just cuts a few hours of production time.” Alice froze right before putting a mana-charged thumb onto the activation rune. “You uh, don’t have anything enchanted nearby, right? I’ve broken stuff before when people left unshielded gear around one of these.”

The [Smith] shook her head. “Just regular steel, here. Some of my blades have been enchanted, but that’s done in another town.”

“Good, good. I’m gonna get started then. Don’t cross the line, please.” She pressed the rune and the entire circle took on a subtle glow, the air above it shimmering and the surroundings growing ever so slightly colder. “It won’t kill you or anything, but the runes get confused on how to treat living things crossing the boundary. Plus you probably aren’t fireproof.”

“I have [Le…”

She cut off with a grunt when Alice flicked a spark into the forge and swirled her hand to spread it around.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“That’s…impressive.”

“Eh. It’s not anything special about me, just something I picked up from how I used my magic. I can still burn if I crank the heat up enough but working with normal metals is easy.” She shook sparks from her hand and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, wrapping a leather band from her wrist to keep it in place.

She’d decided to work on the silver first while she let the steel warm up. The billets went onto the wall of the forge, the silver into the flames. When it was soft enough she broke it into four and sat all but one of the pieces aside. The other went back into the fire, the mana suffused into it letting her mold it like putty as it heated up. She stuck a finger through it, widening the piece into a loop similar to her own. The near-molten metal felt like warm clay as she worked it. The heat came through, just didn’t hurt.

Once she had the general shape ready it came out of the direct flame and onto her workspace. It was still hot enough to mold, with a bit of effort, but sturdy enough that it wouldn’t distort as she began anchoring the runes and the interior enchantments.

Miriam had left and brought back a chair by the time Alice picked up a fine-pointed chisel and hammer she’d borrowed from the forge’s owner. The girl didn’t even seem to notice that her arm was actively on fire, the flames themselves burning nearly white. Her strikes were as measured as any [Smith] that the watching woman had known, each one driving a small, glowing divot into the metal. Sometimes, though, the tools would blur and an entire symbol would briefly flash as it appeared on the talisman. Other times, she sat with the loop in her hands and the tools to the side, staring at it and twitching her fingers for long minutes as she mumbled under her breath.

It wasn’t like anything the older woman had seen. She hadn’t seen any true masters of the craft at work before, but she imagined it would be like this. No effort wasted, each hammer’s blow or strike precisely timed, an innate awareness of the state of materials. She hadn’t even heard of people forging like this, though; [Runesmiths] and [Enchanters] almost never worked on material as it was being forged. They would take finished goods and enhance the product, not work on unshaped metal where their efforts could be broken by a poor hammer blow. The way Miriam saw it, though, the woman before her was using the blows as _part_ of the magic, leaving small flecks of impurities behind where they were forced out of the metal

All this, from a woman who said she wasn’t even a true [Smith]. Was this how big the gulf between the rest of the world and Deríthal-Vel truly was?

Instead of making her feel insufficient, though, it lit a fire in her just like the one burning across the dwarven girl’s dress. She could be that good, eventually.

No, she _would_ be that good. Enough levels and practice and she could outsmith any Dwarf. She would never be an [Enchanter] or a [Runesmith], but she could always hire someone to set up what she had seen before, or to create even more exotic smithies. She would become a master, she had to. All she needed were the right [Skills]…

…and maybe to ask a few questions.

The earring that sat at the edge of the circle when Alice stood again was identical to the one in her own ear. She was humming a tune to herself, completely missing the questions coming from outside the circle between it and the roar of the flames as she grabbed the second chunk of silver and began the process again.

The only slightly crestfallen [Smith] watched as the metal was shaped into a teardrop. Then, using the chisel and hammer rather than her fingers, she flattened it slightly, punching a dozen holes through it and smoothing the metal into arching curves and loops. Struts of silver connected the semi-circle at the bottom of the teardrop to the rest, while a shimmering web of metallic strands occupied the center. They whorled around the lower portion of a silver shaft that ended in a small, hollow loop. This one was clearly meant to be like the pendant that sat at her own throat.

When the shape had settled, the process of carving in symbols began again. This time, there were more of the rapid blows, some of the sets barely spaced apart as a line of symbols spread along the outer edges. Curving lines that Miriam could barely see were scored along the connecting struts and across the central web, sparkling more than the sunlight would suggest. Then the woman sat, nearly stock-still, for almost half an hour. At the end, she grabbed the two pieces of jewelry and stood.

There was an audible crack as she stretched, still humming, and lobbed the two heated pieces to her cloaked companion. Miriam had assumed that both of the others had been asleep until an arm shot out from under the cloak and grabbed the thrown metal. For a second, she thought she saw a flash of grey peeking out between the being’s gloves and the cloth wrapping them. Then the arm snaked back under the cloak.

She still wasn’t sure if that one was a man or a woman, yet.

“Hey, Miriam, could you say something to her? If she answers and you can actually understand, then we’re good.”

“Alright?” The older woman looked back at the lounging dark figure, whose cloak was rustling. She still couldn’t see a face under it. “I’m Miriam Jeala. We were never actually introduced.”

It was a clearly feminine voice that answered, putting one question to rest. “Iltari Kelarth. And Allie, oh talented one, you forgot the chain. How am I supposed to wear this pendant?”

“That’s your problem, apprentice.” The Dwarf literally stuck her tongue out. “If it’s not enchanted, it’s not my job.”

So she was teaching the other human? That meant she took non-Dwarves as students…

“Uh, Mistress Alice, would you mind if I asked you some questions?” Miriam rushed to get the words out before the other woman began working again.

“You just did!” Alice laughed as she saw her hosts face fall. “Seriously though, go ahead. And no need to be all formal; unless you’re a foreign noble or dignitary, or you’ve pissed me off, I don’t really care about formality and honorifics. My list is too long to go into at every introduction, anyway.”

She didn’t realize how much harder that made it.

“Do you have any advice you could give me?”

“Like, on the work I’m doing?” The woman nodded. “No, sorry. It looks like you don’t have enough of the mage gift to work the way I do. Anything I could suggest would be either impossible for you, a trade secret I’m not willing to share, or a mix of both.”

“Not even any advice on [Skills] to hope for? Or something to focus on?”

“Uh, not really? I mean, learning to work multiple metals and to alloy them is pretty useful, I guess? You need a steady source of ores or ingots for those though. Getting heat-resistance somehow is a must to work with some specialized metals and could set you apart. Set up a good forge with permanent runic circles if you can manage it. The one here’s perfectly fine for mundane stuff though! My circle just speeds stuff up.”

With that Alice went back to work. Over the next hour and a half she shaped out another set of jewelry, this pair ever so slightly thicker and holding a few more of the incised symbols. This set flew through the air to the actually napping woman and bounced off her chest.

“Well, there’s the art done. Now for the weapons. Hate making these…”

Miriam knew she hadn’t brought enough steel for anything bigger than a dagger. She was interested in what the woman would do with them, and anxious to see the metal worked. The silver hadn’t been hers, but she’d seen the impurities that had been squeezed out of it. Seeing that from her own steel would be disheartening, especially for a master using it.

Alice didn’t use her hands to mold these ones, hammering each billet and rolling the glowing metal on the anvil until she had three tubes laid out. With a pair of tongs and the hammer she stretched each tube at one end, then used an unheated dowel to hollow out the other. Chisel strikes bent the walls of the hollow section over each other, forming a different symbol on each of the projects. Then curving lines were carved into the surface, broken in spots by angular slashes and rows of dots. A handful of symbols imprinted themselves onto the shaft as it was subtly twisted into a sharp point.

Each rod got the same treatment the first projects had, seeing the crafter focus on them for around half an hour once the shape had been fully formed. By the time she finished the final rod, the sun was setting. There was no pile of impurities, this time, but Miriam knew her steel hadn’t been that perfect.

“You didn’t purify the metal?”

“Oh no. The talismans needed purity to work, but these are a quick and dirty job. Around a thousand guaranteed shots, not meant to be recharged. Impurities are actually a good buffer between mana channels for this kind of work.” The woman had extinguished the forge with a wave of her hand and began scuffing away her powdered circle. When her foot first breached the lines, a rush of heated air rolled out and across the courtyard, sending Iltari’s cloak fluttering long enough to reveal more glimpses of grey skin. “I’d need to have at least three different pure metals together to get something infinitely reusable with multiple functions. Those take me at least a week to get together each and are massive overkill for what we needed.”

She picked up the three wands. As she hefted them, she frowned at the middle one. The other two got tossed to her companions as she turned the leftover one over. “Damn it, looks like I screwed up the channels on this one. Mind if I test it?”

Miriam shook her head. The girl slotted her hand into the grip forged into the metal and aimed it at the sky. The air shook as a bolt of searing blue light streaked from the tip. The roar left the [Smith]’s ears ringing and an afterimage in her eyes.

“That’d be it. Messed up the runic spacing for the third relay so it’s pulling to the left. Power’s up a bit higher than usual, but that would be bleed from the mana pump.”

The flaming woman had attached her loop to the base of her ear by that point and threaded the pendant through the top of her dress. She was stretching out now, the dress itself shifting in ways that acted like the skin visible through its slits didn’t have any bones under it. “Sorry for not introducing ourselves earlier, madame smith. Alice is a little scatterbrained sometimes, and Iltari isn’t that social these days. I am Namiree, Daughter of the Flame and the voice of reason for these two.”

“It’s no trouble, ma’am. I would have apprentices if I wanted to talk while I worked. Getting to see a master at work was satisfying in and of itself.”

“Alice can be captivating when she works, albeit oblivious.” She finished stretching and walked over to the forge while the older of her bonded mages swept up the last of the powder. “Still, I feel we’ve been less than generous as guests, even though we paid for your time. Please, take this.”

Her skin flared bright enough that Miriam saw nothing but white for a few long moments. When she blinked away the spots, the exotic woman was carefully placing a small flame into her forge. It seemed reluctant to fall from her hands, white tendrils coiling around her wrist as she lifted away and left it in a bed of coals. As she moved away, it shuddered in ways that the fire around it didn’t.

“It is no major gift, perhaps even a responsibility. But care for that flame, feed it well, and it will care for you in turn.”

The trio said their brief goodbyes, walking out of the courtyard and leaving a stunned [Smith] staring at what she had no way of knowing was a living fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit longer this time! Sorry for the delay, had to rework a few things, but I'm pretty happy with the end result.
> 
> This is basically 10k words in a week. If only I could manage that on my fully original projects, then I wouldn't need to find a job. 
> 
> Also, credit to a cool dude that helped me name the town! It'll be relevant in the next few chapters, totally unlike anything there at the end. Feel free to leave any comments, or ask me questions if you read this from the Discord. I love hearing what my stuff leave's people curious about.


	5. Setting the Scene

**Setting the Scene**

Two of the girls had made a quick stop at the smithy’s privy before gathering up as a little cluster just inside the range of the deflection ward still running inside the courtyard.

“Was that…”

“Not exactly. There’s no Heart here. I feel it, but I can’t pull on its power. Even with you two to pull from, it’s not a cycle.” Namiree’s skin had calmed back to its usual crimson glow. “She will cycle mana between myself and any other Children of the Flame on this world. In time, we may even kindle a Heart. For now, though, she is still me. She might always be. If she ever isn’t – well, she will be a child. I will know and we can come to her, then, but Miriam reminds me enough of you two that I will trust her.”

“If you’re sure. Just know we support you, alright Namiree? We’re in this together.” Alice pulled both of them into a hug, one that Iltari even returned. One arm shook even when resting on the elemental’s shoulder and Alice made a note to check the stabilizers in-depth later. Either something was coming out of phase or her old shoulder wound was acting up again. “Everyone’s fine with their wands, right?”

“I’m good with fire, Allie.”

“Ice works well enough. If mixing it with my flames doesn’t stop something, we definitely shouldn’t be fighting it alone.”

“Great!” Alice let go of the taller girls and tabbed her dress’s rune again, the fabric once again growing lace and flowing sleeves. “So, what now? We already did my stuff.”

“You were the only one that actually understood the guards at the gate, Allie. We know literally nothing about this city.”

“Oh. Let’s see, uh…” Alice started counting off on her fingers. “They think we’re adventurers. The guards were a bit nervous about that. We’re supposed to chip in to defend the city if they call for it, since we’re probably above what they called Silver-rank. Guessing it’s a grading system. Anyway uh, they offered to give us directions to that guild or the one for mages. I think there was something about a noble’s estate and Guildmasters, too? Oh! And no destructive, wide area, or mental magic.”

“You blew off what was basically being asked to meet the people in charge, just to go work at a forge? Then ignored their warnings just to test how badly you messed up a wand?”

“Yeah? You guys needed those talismans. And how else was I going to make sure it was still useable?”

“As much as I want to see the guilds, we should probably go talk to the people in charge before they try to arrest you and we have to break you out of prison. Again.”

“Hey! Iri’s the one that broke me out, and that was just one time!”

“Duller’s Watch. Intar’s Eye. The Elvenhome. Need I go on?”

“Ok fine, I’ve been in jail a lot. It’s not my fault people don’t put up lists on their laws.”

“Mmhmm. Not like you were literally told the law here and still broke it…”

“Nope, definitely not! Ok, so, meet the powers that be and find the guilds later. Maybe an inn.”

The same guard was still waiting outside the smithy, along with a handful of people that had probably seen the lightning bolt when it passed through the distortion. The ward only blocked a couple dozen feet above ground level so it would’ve ended fully visible.

Alice rubbed the back of her head and grinned, looking up at the guard without a hint of regret. “Sorry about the lightning, had to test something to make sure it was safe to carry out and not just a ticking time bomb.”

“Use in an enclosed space is frowned up, but not explicitly illegal in this context.” The guard was stiff. “If you would be willing, the [Lady] Vekhalin has invited you to dinner at her family’s estate. She has directed me to assure you that it is not a demand, although she would greatly appreciate your presence. As host, she has also extended the offer of providing the three of you lodging for the duration of your stay. Free of charge, I am told.”

“Great! We were wanting to meet them anyway. Will you be leading the way?”

The guard nodded, tossing a couple of silver coins to a lean Human from the crowd that took off running deeper into the city. “Of course, ma’am. Two local Guildmasters, from the Adventurer’s and Mage’s Guild respectively, have also invited you to meet with them tomorrow. Would you like me to show you the way to their respective halls as well?”

“That would be just lovely, Miss…”

“[Guardsman] Mari, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Miss Mari. I’m sorry if you’ve been stuck here the whole time, though.”

“It was no trouble, ma’am. I’ve been assigned as your escort for the day, so it’s simply my job.”

She started walking at that, slow enough that Alice didn’t have to lean on her enchanted shoes to stay in line with the others. The guard, just like before, walked a few steps ahead of them. Just far enough that she wouldn’t unintentionally eavesdrop on conversations.

She wasn't being paid enough to do that.

“Iltari, you heard Miriam when she asked for advice, right? Did the way she talked about skills sound a bit weird to you?”

“Other than her being disappointed at her new idol refusing to teach her? No stranger than us going on about spells and the bound versions you sometimes enchant, like the **haste** on those shoes.”

“Eh, you’re probably right.”

“Like always!”

The elemental was ignoring the two of them again. Now that she could understand the people around them she was eavesdropping on the few conversations she could hear. Just little snippets as they moved past, completely different from what she’d heard in cities back home.

“…those dresses are so pretty!”

“Look at those crystals! How much would…”

“Is that a Dwarf?”

“…got to be from her [Class].”

“…sparkly, Momma!”

That one was from a little boy, clinging to his mother’s skirt, that was pointing at her with wide eyes. She smiled, taking care not to show her teeth, and waved. At the same time, she sent a rippling wave of colored flames across her body, focusing a rainbow through the prisms attached to her dress so that it played across the boy and his mother before fading.

Every kid that saw it started waving, shouting, and begging for the same treatment, which she gladly obliged as they passed two neighboring halls on the town’s main street that their guide said belonged to the two guilds that wanted to see them. Both were multi-story buildings, though their colors were faded and drab. As they walked by a few people in armor stepped out of one and started talking in words too low for her to hear. They seemed to be eyeing the group up; some had what looked like awe on their faces, others jealousy, and one had the much more familiar look of lust.

Humans…

The foot traffic thinned out as they got closer to another large building. Made of stone, it had a retaining wall around what she assumed would be a garden from the trees rising above it. Outside the gate stood two guards, each wearing a red and brown tabard not too different from her friends’ cloaks. These ones had a sigil embossed on them too, a staff twined in flowers below what looked like an upraised boulder.

“Alice, just a heads up, this is a Wenud Pa'le situation.”

“Wenud…”

“Windy Valley. They think you’re a Dwarf, Allie.” Iltari added. “Except this time you probably aren’t being invited to a party at Mamut'Gorel’s embassy so a noble’s son can try to woo you.”

Alice groaned. “Again? I’m just short, why do people always jump to me being a Dwarf!”

“Your first impulse in every city is to check either the bars or the forge, so you brought it on yourself.” An elbow bumped into the smaller girl’s side through the other’s cloak as her voice dropped. “I’d say to go with it, this time. They’re acting like Dwarves are rare around here, it would be a good cover until we figure out enough about this world and make a way home. Pretending to be from somewhere foreign like wherever their Dwarves come from is the best way to brush off how different we are. They keep calling us Gold-ranks, so I’m betting those are usually eccentric too.”

“Fine.” Alice grumbled, kicking at the cobblestones on the street. “You sound just like Malvus, you know that?”

“Oh please, I’m not a spymaster. This is just common sense. Unlike a certain someone pretending to be a Magister when they picked up their first spellbook less than a month beforehand.”

“You two are the ones that begged me for help back then…”

They were getting close enough to the guards that their conversation wasn’t guaranteed to be private when Namiree shushed them with a subtle tug on the linked mana between them. “Best behavior, girls. Foreign noble, let’s try not to make Queen Iridian want to skin us alive when we get back.”

They both stiffened at that. Not much about Iltari outwardly changed, but Alice straightened her back so that she was as tall as she could present herself. A single press of her dress’s rune saw the masterwork shift again, some of the lace receding and the color settling into a white that was less brazen about reflecting bright colors. Instead, it had embroidered patterns of vivid gold, the emblem of the kingdom she had fought for at one shoulder and that of her single-person noble house above her heart. Not quite regal, but significantly more presentable than her default setup.

A short conversation that the girl couldn’t follow passed between the three armored people before their guide stepped back and hurried away.

“The [Chamberlain] will escort you once you get inside, Ma’ams.”

Both guards broke from their posts as an honor guard and walked them to the main doors, each guard grabbing one of the doors and hauling them open. Inside, a man in a formal-looking cloth suit was waiting.

He didn’t say anything, just gestured for them to follow. The guards stayed outside when they shut the doors. Alice, at least, wasn’t getting the creepy feelings she’d have expected from this a few years ago. Having magic at hand that could wipe out most of the town around them was probably why, since she had no doubts that an unwarned noble would have nothing that could put her or her friends in danger prepared. Therefore, the simplest answer was just that they were being sincere here and just inviting the group to dinner to try to learn more about them.

And well, if the noble had decided to try something, she never went exploring without a few of her better artifacts, even if they weren’t really offensively oriented. The wand she’d just made was probably the most pleasant way she had to kill someone without having to actively cast, at the moment. Everything else would take some…improvising.

The entry hall had been rather bland, as such things went. The chamberlain moved them along too fast for her to take a closer look at the little spells along the walls that filled the hall with light. There weren’t any grand tapestries or egregiously extravagant paintings, though there were a couple of armor stands and tables along with a small seating area. A large staircase at one end led further in, but their guide passed by it and led them to a small, albeit ornate, set of double-doors at the end of the hall itself.

The room it opened to was significantly larger than the entryway, with half of the floorspace taken up by one large table and the other a cleared hardwood floor surrounded by more armor stands. This one had a few large tapestries, ever so slightly frayed, hanging between the two massive stained-glass windows that took up most of the wall that faced out into the garden.

The table was significantly bigger than what was necessary for this gathering. Seating for at least twenty people, maybe more, lined its scarred, yet lovingly polished, length. Actual candles, set in candelabras that still bore small pieces of spider webs, sat every few seats even though the room was lit by the same small spells as the hallway. None of the candles had wax dripped down their sides yet. There were only five spots set in the middle of the table. Two were on the same side as the open area, the tapestries on the wall looking like they’d be framing those seats from the perspective of the other three.

All in all, a nice setup. A bit rushed, judging from the discolored spots on the floor and walls that suggested things had recently been moved around. Still significantly better than anything Alice or her companions would’ve pulled off if they had to actually take visitors at the empty estates they each had in the capital. For all that they officially held noble titles, the pageantry didn’t really appeal to any of the three.

The only occupant of the room, standing behind one of the two chairs, was a woman maybe six inches taller than Alice. Like almost everything in the house, she bore the same colors of earthen brown and rusted red. She, however, was wearing them in robes not too dissimilar to the cloaks that Alice and Iltari wore practically everywhere. Hers had sleeves and faintly shimmering golden threads along its surface that hinted at an enchantment the group’s crafter couldn’t quite identify. It had no hood, showing off the woman’s youthful face and head of chestnut curls held back with some simple golden jewelry. The style didn’t look particularly well practiced, the woman flinching slightly when she turned and part of it was pinched and subsequently tugged between the robe and her neck.

“Welcome to my humble home, honored guests. I hope you all enjoyed your time in the humble city my family has managed since its founding during the Conquest. I am [Lady] Biria Vekhalin, custodian of Vekhal’s Wedge, and your host for however long you may decide to stay.” The words were delivered fairly well, certainly better than Iridian had done in her first few encounters with Alice, but still seemed a bit forced. The noble didn’t seem to be used to such flowery language.

To be fair, neither was Alice. She knew she couldn’t just do her usual introduction for something this formal, but the full list of titles would bring up too many questions. She settled on going with the one she felt she had truly earned.

“Thank you for your welcome, Lady Vekhalin. I apologize for not notifying you of our arrival directly; some essential equipment was lost on our journey and crafting replacements was my foremost priority.” Ugh, she didn’t even sound like herself. “I’m Alice Remilla, Magister of the White. My esteemed companions may introduce themselves.”

The woman turned to Iltari first, the shadows around the girl deepening as she shifted slightly under her cloak. “Iltari Kelarth, Magus of the White.”

Then she turned to the elemental, who couldn’t help but notice the gleam of curiosity in her eyes that hadn’t been quite as intense with the others. “I am Namiree, Daughter of the Flame. It is a pleasure to meet you in this lovely home, Lady Vekhalin.”

The woman smiled and waved an arm at the three seats. “Please, sit! My [Chef] is preparing the meal at the moment, but it should not take terribly long. Make yourselves comfortable, please.”

The chairs were sturdy enough, though a bit lacking in padding. They squeaked audibly, a sound that made the noble hosting them flinch, when the three scooted forward to the table. Their host followed suit a moment later, though the man who’d guided them had left through the door already.

The noble lady’s eyes took long seconds to move away from Namiree, whose skin had darkened to a reddish orange that seemed almost natural as she cooled herself enough to keep from combusting, charring, or otherwise marring any of the furniture. They settled for a few moments on Iltari, whose cloak was still tightly clasped around her as the light from the spells and candles failed to reach under her hood. It was only then that they moved back to Alice.

“We have much to talk about, but business can wait until we’ve eaten. For now, you simply must tell me about your dress!”

Namiree slumped just as much as decorum back home would allow. Iltari, a bit more. Alice could, and had, gone on for hours about the dress she considered her first real masterwork and neither of the two were excited to listen to that again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did a couple retcons (changing everything to Child of the Flame or Daughter of the Flame, where relevant.) Removing chapter numberings from the text, because those were needlessly confusing. 
> 
> I'm going to try to do at least one chapter a week, but more will go up if I finish them early. Got some other things I've finally gotten the motivation/impetus to start working on again, but who knows; I tend to procrastinate from one writing project by working on another. XD
> 
> Thanks again to a certain cool dude for helping me with naming things and places!


	6. Dinner Conversation

**Dinner Conversation**

“This has been a truly lovely meal, Lady Vekhalin,” Alice said in between sips from a cup of delightfully fruity wine. The main dish had been fish with some kind of spicy red puree over it, with a handful of unfamiliar vegetables. The chamberlain had sat down to eat with the noble. He’d tried to hide it, but it was pretty clear he wasn’t comfortable being there.

“Please, [Magister], just call me Biria.”

“Well, Biria, you can call me Alice.” She flashed a smile at the noble.

Iltari was really surprised that they’d gotten along this well. The noble knowing enough to actually get Alice going about her work, instead of just the dress, wasn’t something she’d expected to happen. It had been enough to get through the other girl’s shell, though.

“I do have to say that I wasn’t expecting to meet someone that actually understood mana saturation and its applications to enchanting here. Most people, even the majority of mages, don’t bother to look so closely at the fundamentals. It’s sad, really.”

That was the worst part of the dinner, in three of their opinions. Even to another mage, an elemental, and a man whose entire job was to manage appointments and finances, listening to two people talk about the technical aspects of a specific field of magic was incredibly, mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly boring.

“I definitely agree. Even at Wistram people tend to focus on the flashier aspects of magic and suffer for it. I always tried to be a generalist. I had a number of friends among the Sedoli faction, so I learned quite a bit of the parlance involved in their trade. They could go for hours and hours debating what the best material was for their projects. I don’t recall fabric being suggested very often, but I think that was out of respect to the Stitchpeople.”

“Oh, even without that, fabric isn’t really an ideal material, so I can’t blame them. Mana density can vary so much depending on the tightness of the weave, and flexible materials are incredibly difficult to set a number of enchantments into. I could go on about how I managed to work around that, but I wouldn’t want to bore you. If I may ask, what did these Sedoli specialize in? I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with the group.”

“Well, if you didn’t attend the academy, that’s not too uncommon. They’re quite a bit smaller than in the past, sadly, but they’re the modern golem-makers of the Wistram, following in the footsteps of the late [Archmage] Zelkyr. They have quite a few lovely statues, animated and otherwise, though some design choices are, ah, rather exaggerated.” The woman’s face flushed a little. Alice decided that it was probably from the wine. If not, she didn’t want to dig too deep into the context. “I never had a talent for their practice, sadly, but one can learn a lot just from listening to someone as passionate as they are.”

Alice smiled as she slipped in a probing question. The mention of an academy was enough to bring caution back to her mind. The odds of it being like what she’d first found weren’t particularly high, but there were still some things she wouldn’t stand for.

“That’s quite a glowing recommendation, and from the nobility no less. I believe I might call on them some time soon. Autonomous constructs are outside of my specialty, but I do have some fantastic notes from a former colleague that they might have an interest in. Hoarding knowledge that can’t be used is such a crime, don’t you think? The poor man didn’t understand that, but certain reforms back home made his opinion a distinct minority.”

The noble, to her approval, nodded. Her words confirmed one distant issue but came with enough actual emotion that the smile Alice returned wasn’t feigned. “Wistram, or at least some of the dominant factions, might disagree. Their power has waned significantly under that school of thought, though. It’s nice to meet someone that thinks magic shouldn’t be hoarded for the powerful. I can’t even imagine how much we’ve lost from generations of people doing that. Nobody in my family even comes close to recreating what our founder was capable of, even among our actual [Geomancers].”

“An all-too-familiar state, sadly.” Alice nodded. She wouldn’t be sharing around her spells to people that weren’t qualified, and she knew she was shit at teaching actual classes, but she’d helped tear down the Academy that had taken magic out of the common people’s reach. They’d smothered centuries of progress and rediscovery after the war that had shattered most of the world she’d stumbled into so many years ago. She’d do it again, if she had to, even after having lived through the war it had taken.

She managed not to spill her alcohol when Iltari kicked her shin under the table. That meant it was probably time to stop thinking and change the topic.

“I do have to ask, now that the meal’s through; why did you ask to meet with us?”

The other woman stumbled over her words as she said, “Well – uh – it’s a [Lady]’s duty to host important visitors to her lands. Hospitality isn’t something we should pick and choose with. I was raised to always offer what I can, to our people and others.”

Alice nodded and kicked Iltari back under the table. Lightly. She really didn’t like being the one stuck doing this, but she’d dug herself in as the group’s mouthpiece at this point. “Then you were raised right, Biria. Your city has been as courteous to us as any stranger can rightfully expect. But nobody would ever ask you to extend your own home as a venue for just anyone unless there were no inns nearby. So, forgive me for asking again: _why?_ ”

“Uh, well, it’s… it’s good practice to network with foreign emissaries and individuals of your level.” She looked more and more lost as she went on. The [Chamberlain] tried to hide his flinch. “The guards logged you as Gold-rank. I just assumed you were from De – Deri – Dereth – Dwarfhome. We would have heard if another exile was coming to Izril after the bidding war on the last one, and a crafter of your caliber passing by is a once-in-a-lifetime chance and…”

Alice raised a hand and the woman trailed to a stop. That had been an actual trainwreck. On the bright side, she’d just won a bet from Iltari about there being someone worse at social skills than her in an actual position of power. And she’d learned that yeah, they definitely thought she was a Dwarf.

She knew they were in somewhere called Izril, and that this world’s Dwarves came from somewhere at least sort of hard to pronounce. They were pretty distant from here if the first Dwarf-like person they saw come through was automatically assumed to be either an exile or a diplomat. Or maybe it was her dress and companions doing that? They weren’t exactly subtle or understated, so she couldn’t be sure about why they thought she was a diplomat.

Dwarves here apparently hadn’t broken the stereotype of being smiths either, going off of the thing about a bidding war for an exile. She…wouldn’t be helping that reputation, at all. But still, damn it, she wasn’t a rune and enchantment focused mage just because she was short!

The thoughts ran their course and she decided on a way to go forward before Iltari kicked her again for the silence stretching on too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been awhile! I'm still not particularly happy with this, but I've decided to just go with it. This story's meant to be experimental, so why not experiment with sharing things even if I'm not particularly sure how good they are?
> 
> I'll also be doing more updates, hopefully. My goal now is to get one or two out a week, or whenever I get them done if I manage more. Update sizes will vary a lot. Some of them might be like the last few, others might be around this one. Who knows. I'll try not to let it go for more than two weeks without an update, going forward.


	7. A Quest?

**A Quest?**

“There’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, and I’m sorry about that. I’m not a dignitary or anything at the moment. I’m here on my own business rather than in any representative capacity.” She held up her hand again to stall the response. “On crafting, I’m not looking to make a new workshop now. I’d be open to having something commissioned, but without a personalized crafting space and established supply chain I won’t be making anything particularly noteworthy. I don’t know how long I’ll be in the area yet, but I can draft a list of what I’m willing to make and what I’d need to do it.”

“No!” The [Chamberlain]’s eyes widened at the noble’s outburst. She backpedaled before he could turn to her though. “I mean, well, the list would be welcome. The main reason I asked to meet you is adventuring related. There’s something happening nearby that none of our local teams are qualified for and that we don’t have the budget or knowledge to outsource for.”

An adventuring problem? That would be a nice change of pace. Plus adventures usually meant getting to discover more about the area, which would be pretty. If you were trying to figure out something that was happening you could get away with asking a lot of weird and probing questions.

“We might be able to help, Biria. We’d need to know what the actual problem is, though, so I can’t make any promises just yet.”

“People are disappearing across the river and we haven’t heard from the Silver-ranks we sent in that direction for two weeks. They had a [Mage] who knew [Message] with them and were supposed to be headed back with refugees, but they never arrived. Neither of the other big groups in the area want to risk going out on that side of the river but we don’t know enough to get any Gold-ranks to come in without more than we can afford to pay.”

That didn’t sound good. Not the fun kind of adventure; it looked like this would be the ‘hunt down a murderous thing and recover the bodies’ kind. Alice was pretty sure that they were going to help no matter what at this point. They wouldn’t let innocent people get hurt if they were actually asked for help or in any place to stop it. That just wasn’t how the group thought.

“Could you tell us more? How many and what kinds of people disappeared, anything that the last team sent back, anything weird about the area, or any guesses you’ve got would be great. Like, are people disappearing from their houses, or is it hunters or travelers or other people that go out of town? Does it happen during the day or at night? That kind of thing.”

The noble nodded, turning to look at her chamberlain. He cleared his throat and recited something he’d clearly memorized, “The first reported disappearance was a [Hunter] thirty days ago who never came back to his village, Hillsglade. The second and third were a mother and daughter travelling to visit family the nearest village three days later. Another three days had a [Farmer] and his family taken overnight from their beds on the edge of town. No bodies were ever found, nobody from the searchers they sent out saw anything unusual, and there was no blood or broken furniture in the house. That was when the villagers sent a party here to ask for help.”

When he stopped the noble picked up with, “It’s a few days walk to get there from here. It’s Vekhalin land, so it’s our responsibility to protect them, but my family still hasn’t recovered from the Sacrifice of Roses. I’m our closest member and all our house troops are weeks away. When trying to [Scry] for the missing people didn’t work, I sent out the best Silver-rank team in the city. Three more families had disappeared by the time they arrived, one on the night that the town sent for help and two the night before the team got there. Still three days apart. They sent a message back about preparing for the next attack, since they saw the pattern.”

Uh-oh. Alice could guess that was where things went wrong. She held up a hand again. “You said scrying didn’t work. Was it blocked or just something that failed to lock on?”

“Blocked, I think. I’ve scried Hillsglade before and the spell won’t lock onto anything in the area right now. Last week another two villages nearby went dark. None of our [Runners] will take the contract to check on them, same with the handful of Silver and Bronze-rank adventurers we have left. My family’s sending in some house troops, but I don’t want to risk waiting for them. These are my people going missing and I can’t do _anything._ ”

Namiree nodded. “I know how that feels, Lady Vekhalin. We’ll help. If I’m following the timing correctly, they got to the town and reported back a bit more than two weeks ago. What happened between then and their last message, since you said they were headed back when they dropped off the map?”

The noble nodded. She was wringing her hands. “They had a few basic wards set up and had the entire team on watch around the village on the night the next attack was due. They reported back that something set off half the group’s [Dangersense] during the night, but nothing happened except for one sentry claiming to have seen eyes in the dark.”

“What kind of eyes? Glowing, reflective? Two, four, eight? General size?” Iltari was tapping her foot on the floor, going through a list in her head of what she knew about that could’ve done it. It wasn’t particularly short.

“Their [Mage] wasn’t specific enough to tell. After that, we didn’t hear anything for a few days. No responses when I tried to send one to them even though I felt it go through. The last we heard was on the fourth day after that. It was a message that cut off partway through. What I got from it was that the village was trying to evacuate here under escort. They never showed up, and since that one came in I haven’t been able to scry anything further out than twenty miles in that direction. The boundary hasn’t moved since it first popped up, but the spell’s viewpoint just refuses to focus further in.”

Alice nodded. “Like Namiree said, we’re going to help. This isn’t something we’re willing to leave alone. We’ll plan tonight and head out tomorrow. It’s not enough time to make any new wargear, but we should have enough to handle this.”

“You have a guess at what’s happening?”

Iltari picked up that one. “A couple. It could be a few varieties of monster, but most would’ve been more violent or moved on instead of fighting a bigger group. A pack of something psychic or paralytic might have done this, but they would’ve needed an accelerated breeding cycle to pull off this pattern of escalation. A few have that kind of growth but I don’t remember any that mess with scrying. Bandits would be too bloody, but it could be a mage that went into one of the dark sides of magic. Some kinds of necromancy could pull this off but there’d probably be more signs. Blood mages could pull off the abductions and take on an unprepared adventuring team, but there’d usually be, y’know, blood all around if it was their work.”

Alice went on with, “Honestly it’s too early to narrow it down. You said that a group of villagers came to ask for help? If they’re still in town, I’d like to talk to them. I’ve got a few things I could use to check out the village from a distance if I could get them calibrated using some kind of emotional focus linking to the missing people or the town itself. Seeing which methods get blocked will help us narrow the list. My gut feeling is that people are involved somehow, since what you described doesn’t fit natural behavior even for intelligent predators. There’s plenty of unnatural reasons, but which one it is will change how risky it is to go in. Also how likely it is that we’ll find anyone alive. There’s still a chance, but I wouldn’t put any bets on it.”

“Thank you, thank you so much. For pay…”

“Don’t worry about it. You can give whatever you feel’s fair, but we’ll wait and work that out after it’s done. For now, could we have a few rooms? For the night and to work in. It won’t be any crafting, but a few of the spells I’m thinking of will need some space and materials. Nothing major, just things I didn’t carry here.”

“Certainly! Reginald here will get you set up with everything you need! I’ll send a [Runner] to the party from Hillsglade and to the guildmasters; they offered some free equipment and support to whoever took the task, though what we have available…might not be much help for you.”

“Oh! They wanted to talk to us too. If it’s not breaking any boundaries, would you tell them that they can come by and see us tonight if it’s important? Otherwise we won’t get to them until we’ve found your people and whatever caused this.”

The noble just nodded in acknowledgement and rushed out of the room as the three girls each started listing off the things they wanted to get ready.

It wasn’t a short list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another one! Don't expect everything to be this fast, I'm not Pirate!
> 
> Minor retcon happened to the last few. Forgot that TWI used [Steward] as a royalty-given class instead of any noble's household-and-affairs manager. The guy it affects is now a [Chamberlain]. 
> 
> Anyway, stay tuned for next time! Do I know what's gonna happen? Maybe. Sorta. This story doesn't have any concrete plan, but things were thought of while I wrote this one and avoided dealing with my *wonderful* family.


	8. Preparations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh. This one isn't the best. Still kinda short, but it's at a good enough stopping point to put something up and I'd rather do it now than wait a week or two without something in case I don't get or keep the motivation to finish the next half of what would be a full-sized chapter.

**Preparations**

The room that the older man took them to had the same signs of being hastily-cleaned as the rest, with some hints of dust still hiding in corners and along the places where furniture pieces and decorations sat against the walls or floor. It was the sitting room for a suite of bedrooms that had been set aside for them. There were five bedrooms there that they’d been offered to choose from, since it was probably set up for a group bigger than theirs. Two of the rooms and the main one had their own bathrooms, complete with running water and a variation on toilets! That was already a step up from most mid-sized cities back home.

The chamberlain had left right after showing them around to start getting what they’d ask for, leaving the three crouched around a powdered diagram Alice was sketching out. It would be a generalized casting circle with most of the runes and constructs they’d need for the planned spells pre-made and just waiting to be hooked up into the reagents or implements they’d be using.

Namiree’s skin was still darkened so she didn’t catch anything on fire, but she’d gotten used to keeping it toned down. Not everyone lived in a stone tower where everyone and everything inside of it was practically fireproof so she’d learned how to manage it when she first started interacting with people. She just had to cut loose for awhile if she kept a cap on it for too long. It was looking like she’d have her chance pretty soon.

“You guys are with me, right? She’s serious about this and we need to help.”

“Yeah.” Iltari’s cloak was draped back so she could see better. She’d sweep it forward again once the alarm-variant of **Detect Life** she had running told her that someone was coming in. It wasn’t so much that she was self-conscious about her body that had her covering it as much as possible as she just didn’t want to deal with other people’s reactions. Maybe if they stuck around long enough she’d use it as a regular cloak instead of a shroud, but that was for the future. She went on, “If she was lying about anything, it wasn’t about what was happening. Seeing a noble that cares that much about her people is always a nice surprise.”

Namiree brushed a spilled patch of dust away so it wouldn’t affect the diagram. “She didn’t seem to be very well-versed in political talk, so my guess is that she’s some kind of second or third daughter. Someone they don’t really expect to inherit and who isn’t particularly high up in whatever the local hierarchy is. By the way, I see what you meant earlier about them stressing some of the words weirdly. It’s like the way you two describe spells. I noticed it when they mentioned jobs or titles. Didn’t you say you heard it about skills?”

“Yeah.” Alice stood and brushed off her knees. “Jobs and skills? It sounds like more stuff from video games back on Earth. Remember those rants I went on about magic, Dwarves, Elves, and all the other crap?”

“How could we not? You didn’t shut up about them for like a month after I first followed you back through the door and you came clean about your world.”

“Well, uh, it sounds like something like that. Classes and stuff, basically. The bit she said about a crafter of my level could’ve been a figure of speech like we use, or they could have some kind of actual levelling thing here. Like, people getting stronger and getting special stuff as a reward for it. Things like spells or other alchemical buffs that you just get on command or as a permanent boost without needing to learn or apply them. It’s from the same kind of entertainment stuff as Dwarves and everything. Gods, if they have that kind of crutch here, I’m gonna scream.”

“Why?”

“Because if they’ve got that shit, then they’ve basically been running on training wheels! I had to learn how to cast from the ground up and spend years studying with quite literally the best spellbook and learning environment we know exists, on top of having our bond with Namiree to draw on, just to learn how to drop a meteor on an angel’s head. With a system like those games had, they’d be able to do some bullshit quests or kill a few hundred wolves or read a couple of books and have [So-and-So’s Comets] just shoved into their head for fucking free.”

The fact that she was ranting didn’t mean she was any less focused as she scuffed a few lines into shape with her foot.

“Ah.” Iltari was silent for a second, then nodded. “Yeah, that seems unfair. Anyway, Namiree, did you notice anything weird? I know she said it’s a few days away, but any signs that magic here’s been fucked with lately?”

The elemental shook her head. “There’s a faint pulse from across the river. It’s muffled and doesn’t feel alive, more like there’s something strong leaking mana like a faucet. Sometimes it’s just a faint presence like a surface-level leyline or charged area, but twice I’ve felt it flare up like someone threw grease on a fire.”

“Inconsistent free mana could be what’s messing with her scrying then. If it’s going through a shift or cycling in intensity that could make it hard to focus and might make inexperience diviners think their scrying failed. We’ll see if it messes with ours. If it does we can move down the list. Maybe a standard **Scry Person** first. If that doesn’t lock on, **Scry Location**. Depending on how those go we could try something from the **Locate** or **Track** family then go through **Far Sight** and its other sensory variations. People usually forget to block the scent and touch channels with blanket effects. Um – maybe **Mapping Vista** after that? Pretty sure the sympathetic aspects run through a different mechanism too.”

“We’d need some actual powder tied to the town for that one, remember? I don’t think people running for help after something started hunting them and their family would’ve brought sawdust or dirt with them.”

“Oh yeah, normal sand won’t work. Eh, we’ve got enough that I can run from this circle to see. We’ll be able to tell if its general interference or actual blockage, and probably if this stuff messes with senses. Hopefully we’ll find out whether or not someone’s left alive even if we can’t pull off any actual recon.”

Iltari covered up again, the twilight aura around her fading into a faint haze around her. “Yeah. Head’s up; the lady’s coming back with three new people and her steward or whatever she called him is headed back too.”

The trio rearranged to stand in a line next to the circle, with Alice in the middle. It was just habit to array themselves like that whenever they were working around other people; being in a new world wasn’t going to change that.

Besides, this kind of spell was closest to the girl from Earth’s wheelhouse than the other two’s. It wasn’t like they needed to improvise for this, so they’d let the one who focused on static and rune-enhanced spells work her magic. They could stand back as moral support and give the image that they were actually professional and would be able to save anyone that was left in the town. Since the local noble was a woman it probably wouldn’t come up, but they were well and truly fed up with being underestimated or called amateurs just because they were all girls.


	9. Reconnaissance

**Reconnaissance**

The chamberlain reached them first. Some of the supplies got set to the side while Alice filled a bowl of water and sat it in the center of the diagram. She’d just finished setting it up when Biria Vekhalin and the people from the village came in. There were two men and a woman in clothes that would’ve fit in back in their home kingdom’s smaller towns. Clothes weren’t all that different here, even if the actual stitching and quality, if not material, looked a bit better to the crafter’s eye.

“Hi, I’m Alice. Iltari, Namiree, and I will be heading out in the morning to do whatever we can to help you and your town. Right now we’re working on things to figure out what’s happening there before we go. I know you don’t have much more you can tell us, but I’ve got things set up here to try scrying into the area to see if we can find out what’s blocking normal attempts. It should be able to tell us if your friends and family are alive.”

“It can?” The one in the center stepped forward even as the other two reached out to grab him. His face was that ruddy red that came from someone who’d been drinking and his expression was somewhere between worry and anger. He was getting louder as he went, “You have to…”

Alice just talked over him. She was used to doing that after so long dealing with the other magisters at the Academy. “It could, depending on what’s stopping your Lady from scrying. Some of the spells won’t focus in if the subject is dead or shielded in very specific ways. Others will try to lock on and just won’t transmit any useable information. We know enough to tell the difference between the two cases, but it’s not a guarantee that everyone’s dead even if there’s no response. We’ll be going in expecting to save people, no matter what. Whatever this is, it preferred to hunt at night; a few hours won’t make any difference except letting us actually plan.”

The man shut up as she spoke, his companions dragging him back into their little row. They stood together as a group while the noble and her companion stood on the other side of the circle. His face fell as he actually looked at the three mages and realized who he’d been yelling at and in front of.

“Now, what we need from you three for this first spell is a name. Someone’s full and formal one, preferably. Having nicknames or aliases can help too, just not as easily on their own. Knowing y’all’s is useful too, since it’ll let us paint as big a web as we can. The name should be someone that all of you have a deep connection to. Lifelong friends, parents, spouses, or children. That kind of bond. If you have something connected to them that you’re willing to risk losing it should work even better.” She gestured at the bowl of water, nestled in a mandala charged with enough mana that it shimmered slightly to the eyes of every mage in the room. “If you give me something it’ll go into the bowl and be a conduit that helps us focus in. Any kind of resistance or blocking will damage it, though, but having a physical link makes it harder to block us. Hair or other body parts are best, but you wouldn’t be carrying those with you.”

The man that had stepped forward hesitated for a second, then reached into a pouch at his side and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in cloth. A crude little doll. He gingerly held it out toward Alice, reluctantly letting it drop into her hand as she walked over. “My daughter, Livia Greenhearth. She made this for me as a good luck charm. She’s five, she was staying with her grandparents in the middle of the village when we came for help since our house was on the edge where people were going missing. Please, find her.”

“He’s Weilan Greenhearth. We’re Heral and Miran Houram. She’s our niece.”

Alice nodded and gently took the bundle, placing it in the center of the bowl where it slowly sank to the bottom. “If she’s alive, we’ll find her. I promise.”

She did the last few preparations and then knelt to cast the actual spell. It was one of the few she hadn’t found a way to work around the verbal components for. Part of the meaning behind the ritual itself came from the words rather than just treating them as a mnemonic for mana constructs like the larger field of magic.

She was pretty sure that meant it came from a different origin caster than the rest of the system, but she had no way of proving it back then. She’d hoped to find proof of her theories by looking through the White and other worlds, but that had just gotten her stuck here for now. And she couldn’t let herself get distracted with that, not when there was work to do.

The wording didn’t matter much as long as it was strung together in a way that properly conveyed the caster’s desire so she was planning to improvise it as she fed a trickle of mana into the water. Shaping it with ease born of experience, she traced out a loose diagram that hung just beneath the surface and latched onto the doll at the bottom. When that was made, she started to speak. Each word resonated in the air and sent ripples across the surface as it drew in mana from the exterior diagram and from the mage herself, flaring brighter to her gaze and building on itself in a series of pulses until even the non-mages could see the doll glowing.

“We seek Livia Greenhearth of Hillsglade, daughter of Weilan, niece to Heral and Miran, last seen in the care of her grandparents. Lost to evil and misfortune, her father wishes her returned safe, sound, and whole. Through a gift made with her heart and by her hands, we call out to her. By family, virtue, and craft we ask to see. **Scry.** ”

At the last word, the ripples broke up and the bowl shuddered for a few long seconds. Alice frowned as it started sucking in even more power, taking not just from her and the diagram as it sucked power from her links to her apprentice and familiar. The doll began to crumble at the edges, fabric fraying away into blackened dust.

The spell was still searching. This wasn’t a wide-area variation, since she’d known it wouldn’t be more than a few hundred miles to look across even if whatever had done this had taken everyone and moved. That meant she was alive and in the area, just obscured. By something that wasn’t outright blocking scrying at her, specifically, but that was forcing an inordinate amount of power through it.

Finally, with just half of the doll left intact, the bowl went still. The water smoothed into a mirrored pane and, for a single moment, showing a crying girl in a dark, stone room huddled between two malnourished older people that were holding her tightly.

Then the image fragmented into darkness and the air in the room went dead with a pulse of mana coming _out_ of the bowl. 

All three involved mages jumped into action as soon as that happened. They raced to scuff out the connecting lines linking the bowl to the wider diagram without breaking the containment around the circle. As the first portion was erased by a pool of shadow, an echoing shriek shook the room. The mirror on the wall shattered as the air began to press down on the occupants. The three villagers’ knees buckled, while the noble managed to stay standing and support her servant.

The second part of the diagram was washed away with a branching gout of fire that scattered the chalk and burned the mana that had been running through it, a brilliant green flame reaching up to scorch the ceiling as the air filled with the sound of wings and the bowl began to shake. Lines of darkness spread out along the outside of the circle as reinforcements, a second set growing around the two clusters of innocents in the room.

Iltari’s cloak was pushed back by the remnants of a gust that pushed through the half-formed wards around the bowl, putting the war between golden and silver lines along her skin on full display as the metal embedded into her struggled to contain it. Mana leaked out of one stabilizer near her shoulder, its glow starting to flicker as the skin around it darkened from grey to black, as the lights tore into each other at the center of one of the largest scars. Constellations were flickering into existence and dying on her skin as she tried to keep putting the wards up.

When the metal went entirely dark her entire arm went limp. Stars burst into the air above her skin and the half of the wards facing her friends collapsed as she wrestled her magic and the twinned blessing and curse back under control, sweeping the entire spectacle back behind her robe before the newly-formed vacuum could suck anything in.

Alice almost made it to the last connector that would’ve starved the ritual of power. Her hand was scraping the last relevant part of the diagram out as the bowl went still. Before she could finish, it exploded.

Floorboards shattered and shards of ceramic bounced off her dress and cheek as they passed through her own wards, not even drawing blood. Other pieces slowed as they crossed the circle, stopping entirely as a wave of darkness washed up from Iltari’s wards around the spectators. It was just transparent enough for them to watch what followed.

From the hole where the bowl had been, spells poured out. The last of the mana from the ritual, and more besides, screamed into the room as blades of wind. Wings made of shrieking wind tore at the circle and the mana making it up. When the circle broke with an echoing snap, they spent themselves on the three mages. They ruffled clothes, but their ferocity was spent on the personal wards and defensive enchantments the trio never really took off. Their main goal was containing it and blocking out whatever had been looking back at them through the link.

That meant they missed the last spell until it was too late to stop it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a cliff!


	10. The Hex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... that cliff wasn't supposed to be so long. Oops.
> 
> More will come soon! Probably!

The last effect, emerging as the rest spent themselves uselessly on destroying the room, was a pair of talons made purely of mana that pushed through the last shreds of the short-lived link. They slid through the wind constructs that had lashed out as if the Tier 3 spells didn’t exist, flying straight toward the target they’d been given on their birth.

They weren’t alive. But they could be viewed as having an awareness of sorts, in the way that a homing spell or one able to differentiate between friends and foes could have. The link hadn’t been strong enough for their maker to really see what was happening but the constructs knew who to look for in the room of muddled mana signatures. There were three viable options that the hex searched through before they hit their actual target.

If they’d had conscious thoughts they’d have assumed the fourth caster present was just an apprentice and treated the other three as the actual threat. The trio felt foreign, the mana running within them in paths the weapons hadn’t been made with an innate knowledge of. That foreign marker was just one of the conditions they’d had imprinted as they were pulled into being. The others didn’t appear in the one that tasted of darkness, light, and emptiness, not even in the strange undertones of power that waged a war across their skin and soul. Nor did they appear on the one of fire and heat that was the breaching point of something far, far larger, built from a similar power that was beyond their ken.

If the talons had been able to speak or understand what they saw through their twisted version of mana sight, they would’ve warned their maker that things were not simple enough to be resolved this way. As it was, they were simply weapons and that warning died before it could even be thought. Their purpose was to maim and kill, their form was mana honed to an edge sharp enough to cut spells. A hex that would destroy itself to break magical defenses and tear through the caster until there was nothing left to tear.

They flared into a vivid purple light as they hit the first intact barrier that had surrounded the co-opted scrying circle. The tips of the claws burned away as the woven magic tore. The taste they’d been sent after was thick in the air as their target jerked backwards too late to stop them. This one was a litany of contradictions. Her mana echoed with visions of three worlds at once and carried glimpses of a void between them where reality broke down and things twisted. It flowed like water around places that were set as solid as stone, a dichotomy that shouldn’t have been stable, rimmed with dormant shreds of another incomprehensible power. The body had been changed, once, and the mana sang on their not-quite-senses of distant places, of death and rebirth, and of creation.

That one was the source of the mana that had intruded on their creator’s charge and pierced into things that _were not to be seen_.

Their job was to punish the one who’d cast the spell. And if possible, to kill.

They tore through the second and third barriers with a bit more resistance, pieces inset into the robes and worn on the mage’s body glowing brightly as they failed entirely or reformed with the hex inside their envelope. Magical defenses were as useful as unenchanted cloth against them, though each layer cost the hex strength that would be sorely needed later.

The last two layers were the hardest for the spell to burn through. The first of the pair was a green barrier that cracked like glass as the gemstone it was anchored to shattered into a spray of shards. That one burned through a third of what was left of the pair’s arsenal on its own. But then they were ripping through the forming barrier that was spinning out from the mage’s own skin, slipping between strands of the spell where possible and burning it away where it wasn’t.

They were maybe a quarter of what they’d started as when they finally reached flesh and began to cut.

That was more than enough as smaller talons ripped apart the eyes and raced apart, lines of violet light tearing under the mage’s skin and ripping apart what they could. Some sliced through organs, others went through the magical links embedded into the body. Even if their victim survived, their casting had to be crippled.

One talon, the leftover fragment of the original that had plucked out an eye, had enough of its capacity left to notice the deeper web of magic that its substituent spells had missed. It reached out with the last of its power, knowing its charge was done, and _cut._

Neither it nor its creator saw the crimson light that welled out of the web they’d tried to cut and drowned out everything else.


	11. Biria Watches

**Biria Watches**

The room had devolved into chaos when the circle erupted into airborne fury. It had been wrecked by what Biria thought were [Razorwind] spells, but the barriers were settling into place and it looked like they would weather the storm without anyone getting hurt. [Lady] Biria Vekhalin hadn’t seen _anyone_ set up a defensive network like this so quickly, not even at Wistram. Sure, other graduates and she herself could have prepared something similar with time, but not with the warning they’d had to work of. She’d heard of scry-based hexes before, but nothing that could co-opt a spell like this had.

Maybe she should have interacted with the adventuring [Mages] that went to Wistram instead of acting like most privileged students and avoiding them for having learned magic the ‘wrong’ way. Something like this wasn’t what the academy taught; it was something that she could only assume came from years of practice as a group and reflexes that you people had to earn for themselves.

They’d done all of this without using a single [Skill] as far as she could tell. Or at least, none out loud. Just who _were_ these people? What had happened to that one in the back- Iltari, wasn’t it?- who’d looked half-dead when her cloak had been pushed back and the lights had started going crazy on her skin? Was that part of her [Class]? She’s seen [Shadow Mages] before, though nobody that could make this kind of barriers. It was usually an offensive discipline, either misdirection and illusion or outright attacks. There’d still been horror stories going around when she graduated about Archmage Valeterisa’s familiars.

She’d just started to relax when it all went wrong; Biria was the first to see the purple talons that rippled into view about a foot from Alice’s skin. She didn’t know what exactly they were, other than them being something the barrage of ordinarily-lethal spells had been meant to cover. Time seemed to slow down as it cut through the barely-visible layers of protection from the girl’s gear and the basic barriers she’d had up for her own safety. The stronger one that the [Lady] saw start to appear collapsed almost as fast as she could blink.

There was nothing that Biria could do. None of her [Skills] would work, especially not if whatever the three had wasn’t enough. She just watched in stunned silence as the spell got closer and closer to the foreigner’s face even while the other spells finally died down.

Then it ripped out the Dwarf’s eyes.

It took a few seconds for Biria to realize that _she_ was the one screaming, not Alice. Everyone but the woman from the village was staring, unable to look away. A few were retching.

The eyes had just…popped. A gush of cloudy liquid that rapidly filled with blood had oozed down Alice’s face as she staggered backwards, the scream dying in her throat as the spell branched out. Red lines raced outward from her eye sockets, blood seeping from each of them. Only a few stayed on her face, the rest zipping down her throat and vanishing under her dress and cloak. The blood just slid off the fabric even as slivers of skin flaked off where the lines intersected.

There was so much blood. Biria was sure that she was watching someone die horribly, the world moving in slow motion as the Dwarf’s companions started trying to do something to help. Alice’s knees had given out and she’d just started to fall when the room stilled. For a single second there was an overwhelming pressure so much worse than the ritual that had started this had brought, accompanied by the feeling that a giant eye was looking down on the room. A heartbeat that shook the room pulsed twice as Biria and the other occupants tried not to breathe. It was coming right from Alice, who hung suspended in the air.

The only thing that moved was the blood dripping from her.

Iltari and Namiree both recognized what was happening but even the natives to Biria’s world, though obviously she didn’t know to think of them that way, had a feeling that drawing attention to themselves might be a bad idea.

The pressure faded slightly as if the eye had turned away, the heartbeat receding to be replaced by the sound of rushing blood. Reality _twisted_ , in a way that sent ripples across the world that briefly touched Nothing. The first effect was a glow the color of arterial blood that spilled out of every cut on Alice’s body, swelling bright enough that the [Lady] screwed her eyes shut, even if she couldn’t make herself look away.

The second was a blast of air that splattered warm liquid across her face with a whumph.

The third was the presence receding and normal sound rushing in again. A fleshy thud was the first thing she heard as the unnatural stillness faded and she opened her eyes to see that her hands had been stained with crimson droplets of blood. She tasted iron as she opened her mouth, prepared to scream again.

Instead, she threw up. 

While the now thoroughly bloody occupants of the room tried to process what had just happened, they missed what the scene above had just done. Nothing saw it, though. Each and every Nothing faded again, but they knew they would not forget this. Something had come, but it wasn’t time for them to move.

Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one! Kinda short, not really advancing much. 
> 
> After all, Nothing happened.


	12. Blessed

**Blessed**

“Ugh.”

That was all Alice could think of to say.

In the span of thirty seconds she’d gone from channeling an overpowered ritual to blocking a deluge of attack spells to being blinded and drowning in her own blood as one of those spells quite literally cut her apart. Now she was whole again and the worst pain she had to deal with was a spot on her ass from being unceremoniously dumped on the floor. More of a bruise to her ego than to her body and nowhere near as uncomfortable as the strain being fixed had left. It was easy to put the memory of that pain into a box and forget about it; she had plenty of practice at blocking out trauma.

Plus compartmentalizing was a mental issue. A lot easier than teaching a body that had just been rebuilt from scratch how to do more than breathe.

She blinked away the stars from her eyes, each lid feeling like trying to dip a spoon into cold molasses, and started to look around. Once the blurry shapes surrounding her resolved themselves she couldn’t help but wince. Somehow there was even more of a mess than the first time she’d gone through the process. How did she have so much more blood than before? It was _everywhere_. And was that…

Yep. There were clumps of bloody hair on the ceiling. She tried to lean sideways as she saw it start to drop but her muscles misfired and it fell right on her forehead.

She’d been clean before she hit the ground, she assumed. That’s how it had worked last time. Just like then it sure hadn’t lasted. Some of the blood had dripped from the ceiling back onto her face, more had splashed onto her legs and cloak when she fell into the thickest pool of it, and she could feel it squishing around the inside of her underwear too. That by itself was a good enough reason to make her glad she’d been alone and naked last time this had happened.

The only thing completely clean on her was her dress, the crimson fluid spilling across it without leaving a trace.

At least she wasn’t tasting it. She realized that the others weren’t so lucky as her feet slipped around in the puddle trying to get purchase. Even if the spray got less uniform the further you went from her current seat it had still been like standing around an explosion. The Human body had a lot more blood in it than people expected, especially when the flesh dissolved too.

That last part wasn’t exactly normal, though, unless you were dealing with the blessings of a goddess with a _very_ sanguine theme.

She shook her head side to side, feeling new muscles stretch and react for the first time, until her ears finally started picking up the clamor of people, understandably, freaking out about witnessing something that was honestly horrifying. She tried and failed to wipe her hands off with the hem of her dress before her feet got a grip on the floorboards. Giving up on that, she accepted the blood would get everywhere and wiped the hair clump off her face. Getting into habit of breathing through her nose again took a few seconds. She was just glad that her sense of smell hadn’t kicked in yet.

Alice sighed; it was time to deal with the aftermath. She started flexing her muscles one-by-one to get the jitters out in preparation for standing and coughed to clear her throat. That was enough to get everyone’s attention off the blood and back to her, since they probably all wanted an explanation.

“So, first off, _ow_. That fucking hurt.” She grimaced as her arm wobbled and gave out when she tried to put weight on it. “Next up, whoever sent that fights dirty. That spell was a mage-killer. I think it actually broke three of my charms and somehow bypassed the rest of my defenses. Even without active spells running that shouldn’t have happened. It _probably_ wouldn’t have killed me once my other artifacts kicked in but there’s no way I’d have been moving around under my own power in the next year without a damned good healer.”

“How – how did you – what the fuck just happened?”

That was the woman from the village.

“It bit off more than it could chew. There are persistent enchantments woven through me that are beyond anything I can make. Best I can tell, it attacked one of those and I was… _reborn_.” She shivered at that, a conscious decision. “I wouldn’t give up this blessing for anything, but fuck I wish I’d gotten the fire and ash version instead of the gore explosion.”

Her companions, still dealing with the aftermath in their own ways, nodded. Namiree was being very careful with her flames and trying to burn the blood out of Iltari’s robe. The results there were more encouraging than the brown stain spreading out from her feet as everything around her dried. That stain was better than the ruby crystals forming on the other side of the girl as frost claimed the droplets. The elemental saw her companion’s eyes dart in that direction and nodded, sending tendrils of flame around to melt them and hide it away. Iltari was swaying slightly on her feet and that was _not_ a good sign. It meant at least one stabilizer had blown out, maybe even one of the buffers. If there was an actual breach…

That was something they would have to deal with, and fast. Short explanation it was. 

“I really don’t want to go into what that means, but here’s the short version. My, ah, patron…yeah, patron is the best word I guess, does not like having her work adjusted. That spell tried to do it and she rebuilt me to spec. I’m not sure what it looked like from your end but that was her, uh, _fixing_ it.” Alice grimaced and stumbled as she tried to stretch. She needed to be limbered up to fix her friend and that meant being able to stand on her own. “The good news is that I think I just lost thirty pounds and like half a dozen scars. Bad news is that whatever we’re up against is that special mix of dumb and powerful that tends to lead to kingdom-leveling catastrophes. Also, I got a haircut. Not sure how to feel about that.”

The attempt to lighten the message at the end fell on deaf ears. The people from this world were too stunned to really process it and Alice’s friends were too busy to care. No way was she going to explain anything more than that, though, so it would have to do. She shifted around and got up into a crouch.

“They’re going to die. Even if I wanted to be merciful, we can’t let someone that idiotic live, not even long enough to face justice. If they’re willing to try this shit they’re an ongoing threat so long as they’re alive and we don’t have the equipment or skillset to suppress them long enough for trial.”

Namiree cut in to hurry her along. Also to stop the doom and gloom. “We saw that your daughter and some of the others are alive. That was our main goal.”

The noble still looked green even as her attendant fussed around and wiped the blood from her face while guiding her back into a chair that he’d somehow cleaned off entirely. Alice was _sure_ that it had been dirty when she’d first looked around and seen Biria throwing up. Hadn’t he been saying something in its direction though? What…

The woman broke Alice’s chain of thought when she got out, in a weak voice, “A-are you sure you can handle it?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I didn’t expect them to be able to co-opt a scrying spell like that, but even that last spell is something we can handle with active defenses. We’ll be relying on our spellwork and artifacts in this.” Once she’d deep-cleaned her pockets, at least. She just _knew_ that they’d be full of blood at this point. The cloak had left a clear swathe on the wall behind her where it had caught part of the spray. “We didn’t come here geared for war but that just means we’ll need to get creative. Our wargear just makes it… _cleaner_.”

Alice’s tone made the listeners shiver. They all had a feeling that they wouldn’t want to know what the girl meant. The girl herself, though, had already mentally checked out of the conversation. She could see Iltari was slumping into Namiree’s arms and that meant it was even worse than she’d thought.

“I’m really sorry for this, but could you all leave? We need to be alone to plan.”

They all took the chance to leave at that. The servant was the only one to stay long enough to speak. “Would it be acceptable if I sent for [Cleaners] to…”

Alice nodded as she left bloody footprints on her way to Iltari. She didn’t fall, but the steps were anything but graceful. “Sure, sure. We’ll be in and out of the bathroom and the bedrooms. Tell the guildmasters or whoever that they’ll have to wait until we get back. Just leave whatever you wanted to give us and anything you think we’ll need outside, ok? We’ll get it in the morning.”

“Of course, Ma’ams.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Depression is a bitch. I might make a few edits around the ending bits, but well, better to put something out than not.


End file.
